How do I use the mysms widgets and how do I get them to appear on the home screen?

Installing the widget:

Open the Android menu and go to the tab “Widgets”. Search for the mysms widget you want to use and longpress on it to put it on a free space on your home screen.

There are three widgets available:

The 1x1 widget hardly needs any space on your home screen, but will make messaging much faster:

With the mysms (New Text) widget you can directly start composing a new message without starting the app first.

The 4x2 widgets show the number of unread messages. You can compose a new message and get access to the message view in the app by clicking on the message or conversation. In addition they are available in light or dark theme and can both be used on the lock screen (> Android 4.2):

The mysms (Messages) widget lets you choose, whether you want to display the messages of all or only a specific contact. Moreover, it is possible to only show the unread messages and you can mark these messages as read by tapping the check box.